Egyptians No Longer to Tolerate 'Cultural Desecration'

DAHSHOUR, Egypt -- Tour guide Ahmed Shihab cried when he saw how
thieves ravaged an ancient burial site here that includes a pyramid
dating back nearly 4,000 years.

"This is our history and heritage, and they are selling it at a
cheap, cheap price," he said.

Egypt's antiquities have been looted on an unprecedented scale
since the 2011 revolution. At three sites the Tribune-Review
examined, so many deep holes are dug into ancient tombs that the
landscapes resemble Swiss cheese.

Fekri Hassan, cultural heritage director at Egypt's French
University, said the damage to many heritage sites "seems to
threaten any possibility of recovery."

Officials have begun to react; soldiers and more police were
placed here several months after a Trib report in February
documented the looting.

"Every night, the army is guarding the pyramids. ... No one dares
to go there," said Ahmed Ezzat, a local resident who has campaigned
against looting.

"It is much better now," said Wahiba Saleh, Dahshour's chief
antiquities inspector, and "a symbol of what can happen."

'Fragmented image' of history

Many Egyptians don't understand the value of their heritage,
Saleh said, because "they don't consider ancient Egyptians their
grandfathers. They consider them pagans and infidels."

She and others accuse some Islamic leaders of promoting that
view. She recounted overhearing a sheikh urge followers to "break
the pagan idols."

On an ultra-Islamist Salafi television channel, another sheikh
told those who dig for "treasures'' to begin by reading passages
from the Quran to guard against "the jinn," or spirits: "Whoever is
digging, say 'In the name of Allah' with every hit of the axe, so
that the jinn would go away," he declared.

A gold figurine "shouldn't be sold as a statue, it should be cut
and sold, even if that decreases the price," he counseled, and a
stone statue "cannot be sold or traded. It is forbidden, and it
should be destroyed."

Officials -- before and after 2011 -- seem to have missed the
potential of sites such as Dahshour for adjacent villages, despite
tourism's profitability until the political upheaval of recent
years. …

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